Ginger Rice

It is called Ginger Rice because you will need a lot of ginger to cook it. The rice is very tasty to serve together with curry, any type of curry ... chicken curry, mutton curry, fish curry, just name a few. I will show you how to cook the rice and later I will show you how to cook a very simple India curry.

Here is the list for you to prepare ....

2 cups of white rice
1 stick of cinnamon stick
1 star anise
20 slices of young ginger

1 tsp of chicken granule
1 tsp of turmeric powder (or fresh turmeric paste, 1 tbsp)
1 tsp of salt

1 tbsp of fried garlic and its oil
2 sheets of "pandan leaf"
3 cups of water (to cook the rice or as required)

These are optional, add them in when the rice is cooked or just before serving:

some raisin and/or cashew nuts


Wash the rice as usual and put everything listed above into the rice and cook over the rice cooker.

The rice will be in yellow color due to the turmeric powder.

It smell good and very tasty even you just eat it on its own.

Spring Onions

Coriander leaves

Spring onions


Chinese cooking uses a lot of spring onions and coriander leaves. But how to keep the leaves fresh for a week or two? Even you wrapped it with paper and refrigerated it still turn yellow.

Here is a very simple way to keep it. What you should do is wash the spring onions or the coriander leaves clean, leave it air dry, then transfer it to a container, covered it up. It should be kept refrigerated at all time.

It will last at least two long week!!

Scramble Egg Bread

Tired of sandwiches?

Why not try this sweet scramble egg bread? It is fast, easy, delicious and healthy too.

Beat or whisk 2 medium size eggs with 1 tbsp full of sugar. The egg mixture supposed to taste sweet.
Cut bread into the shape of 2 or 4 triangles.
Heat up the non stick frying pan with a bit of butter or 1 tsp of cooking oil

Dip the bread into the egg mixture, make sure the bread is well coated.
Fry it.
Make sure the heat is low or else the bread will get burn very quickly :)

Dessert - Peanut Dumplings

Chinese like to eat colorful dumplings on the 22nd December each year when it is very close to the Chinese New Year celebration. Legend has it that by eating the dumplings, you become one year older and will have a "rounded" year ahead (meaning a better and happier year). But nowadays you can eat it anytime so long as you know how to do it.

My sisters used to cook the dumplings plain i.e. just with the sugar solution or syrup. They made the dumplings into very small red, green and white. It looks very appetizing. Although the dumplings were plain but with the nicely cooked syrup, they were very tasty.

Nowadays, you can get the ready mixed colorful dumpling dough from the morning market in December.

This peanut dumplings we going to make is without color. I will show you how to use the fruit coloring in the future.

First cook the syrup by boiling the 150g of sugar into 600 ml of water. Add "Pandan" leaves as the flavor enhancer. They will give the syrup a very pleasant smell. When the sugar fully dissolved, pour them into a mixing bowl, discard the pandan leaves.



Pound peanut candy with mortar & pestle (you can get it from Ikea) until they are finely ground. As peanut candy were sweet so it will make the dumplings tastier. Put it aside.

You may keep in a jar for future use. This is the same peanut candy I used it for Apple Salad.

Now mix 200g of glutinous flour with approximately 160ml of warm water. Knead the dough until they are well mixed.

Okay now we are ready to make a dumpling. Simply roll a small piece of dough into a ball shape, then press it flat. Scoop about 1 tsp of peanut onto the middle, wrap the peanut nicely make sure no peanut was spilled onto the outer layer of the dough. If you are skillful enough, add more peanuts. I like it with a lot of peanut filled inside.


So you will continue making quite a lot of peanut dumplings (30-40 pieces) and leave them on a tray. We have to cook them before it turned too dry or it will crack. If you feel the dough is too dry, just put a drop of water on you palm and roll.


Here is how to cook them. Boil a pot of water. When the water started boiling, put in the dumplings one by one. They will sink and when it cooked, it floats. Let it continue cooking for a minute before scooped it out into the sugar syrup.


Transfer a few pieces of dumplings with syrup into a nice bowl and serve.

Try it out, it is yummy.

Salmon Spaghetti

This is a very yummy pasta - SALMON SPAGHETTI. It is not difficult to cook it at home. In fact I found it very easy.

First you have to fry the Salmon (Not necessary to coat with salt as we will add some to spaghetti later). Once done, break the salmon(discard the bones) into some smaller pieces.

I always use the spaghetti no. 2, I find the size just right. So boil some spaghetti in the salted boiling water according to the time specified.

Get ready 1 tbsp of finely chopped garlic. Saute it using the extra virgin olive oil. It was done when the garlic turned light brown. Discard 1/2 of the garlic (you can use all if you like garlic) and put the rest (the garlic and the oil) in a nice serving plate (or mixing bowl).

Drain the spaghetti when it was done and pour straight onto the garlic oil, add 1 tsp of chicken stock granules and salt to taste. Add the salmon, mix all together.

Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese and parsley flakes on top. Serve.

Try it out!!

Crispy Biscuits

How do you keep the crispy biscuits?

Yes keep in the air-tight bottle or container. To prolong their crispy life, just throw in one or two cube sugars (those we throw into the coffee) into it. This is because sugars absorb the moisture in the air and hence keep the biscuits crisp.

But the best way is to eat it FRESH!!

Recipe - Dau Yew Bak - Soy Sauce Pork

This is the Black Soy Sauce Pork. The very basic version.


There are so many ways of cooking Dau Yew Bak or so call Black Soy Sauce Pork.

Surprisingly, only pork belly is nice to be used in this recipe.

Marinate the pork belly (about 300g) with 2 tbsp of premium soy sauce.

Marinate them for few hours; you can marinate in the morning and cook it for dinner. (optional- I have added 1 tsp of 5 spices powder)
Get ready the garlic, wash it clean and to be cooked with its skin.

Get ready the candy sugar cubes.


Saute the meat together with the garlic and cube sugar in 2 tbsp of hot oil.

When the meat started to shrink, add
1. 500ml of water,
2. 1 tbsp of soy sauce,
3. 1 tbsp of black thick soy sauce.

In the even the water dry up mid way, add addition hot water.

This is the hard boiled eggs. (Boil the egg in the boiling water for 5 minute. Turn the heat off, leave it covered for about 20 minute. Un-shell it under running water).


Put the hard boiled egg into the soup. Let it cook together with the meat. Occasionally turn the eggs so that they have even brown color on its surface.

When the meat is tender, about 30-45 minute later, add the starch (1.5 tsp mix with 2 tbsp of water) to make the soup not to watery, add salt to taste (in fact the soy sauce eliminates the need to add salt). The sauce suppose to taste a bit sweet, so add a little bit of sugar if required. Some like it salty some like it sweet, so you have to adjust the flavor according to your family preference.

When you get the taste right after a few trials, you can venture into other versions of Dau Yew Bak which give stronger flavor.

A) Dau Yew Bak with 5 spices powder.
B) Dau Yew Bak with dried squid.